LJWorld.com / Oz hearing prompts open-meetings lawsuit

Archive for Wednesday, September 26, 2001

September 26, 2001

A vocal opponent of the proposed World of Oz theme park filed a lawsuit Tuesday, accusing Johnson County commissioners of violating open meetings law last week when members agreed to proceed with an analysis of the development's costs and chances for success.

The decision followed a closed-door meeting among commission members and the county's legal counsel. Commission members did not vote on the decision to proceed with the study.

"I have a right to know why decisions are being made that affect my rights as a citizen," said Philip Klein, who filed the lawsuit.

"I was very upset that the county chose to try to make this decision in a back room without public scrutiny. I am a taxpayer. The taxpayers are being asked to spend $168,000 on this project. I should be entitled to know why the county thinks it should spend that kind of money on a project that should have been trashed long ago."

Don Jarrett, Johnson County's chief legal counsel, said the commission did nothing wrong.

"As long as they were going ahead with the study, there was no need for a vote," he said, noting members' had cast their votes months earlier when the study was first proposed.

If commission members intended to reverse the earlier decision, Jarrett said, a vote would have been required. The discussion in executive session, he said, involved legal issues and is allowed under the open meetings law.

"I haven't seen the filing," Jarrett said, "but from what I know, this is our position."

Klein and others opposed to the Oz project had urged the commission to scuttle the analysis in the wake of a dispute that pitted Oz developers against the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan.

Without analysis, commission members were not expected to endorse the project; and without the endorsement, developers would not be eligible for critical sales tax incentives.

Earlier this year, the commission agreed to the independent review after members deadlocked over endorsing the project.

Klein, who is represented by Lee's Summit, Mo., attorney Jeffrey Carey, also has asked Kansas Atty. Gen. Carla Stovall to investigate the commission's handling of the meeting.

Klein is a frequent participant in public meetings on the Oz project.